Af-Pak -> Pak-Af Watch

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 Aug 2011 20:57

I think Kupwara beheading and the Chinook shooting down are both common handlers:SSG and ISI.

I dont have data yet but such actions are hallmarks of TSP special forces.

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 07 Aug 2011 21:09

JE Menon wrote:We can be virtually certain that the weapon used by the Taliban to bring down the Chinook was supplied from Pakistan. The deafening silence from American officialdom on the event is also remarkable.

You took the words out of my mouth. The silence is defeaning indeed. More coverage of Syrian crack down than this tagedy. Even on NPR, there was a brief report, Mullen mouthing the usual innaities about the sacrifices and the fight must go bla bla, but I see that there is careful attempt to report this with just some basic facts and nothing more. Perhaphs its got to do with the profound loss of H&D and shock; here were Americans coming out on the streets and singing star spangled banner when the Navy Seals took out OBL, and the same seals (or those that were part of the team) met a cruel fate a few months later. However much US officlas downplay this in public, I am sure in the halls of CIA and Pentagon, massive, massive loss of H&D. And in contrast, closed-door celebrations in Pindi with Bollywood tunes, perhaphs even Christine Fair bimbo giving Kiyani a table dance oblivious that the celebrations are for taking out of the Navy seals.

But I can't believe that US will just sit by and not take revenge against ISI. Perhpahs it will be a kind of cold revenge. We may not know the details. Only indications of profuse guboing by TSPA in the coming months will possibly give us some indication of the pain inflicted on them as a result of the cold revenge.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 07 Aug 2011 21:27

I think it is time to place the LoC on alert once again. Kayani is under pressure and is egging us on for a fight. The more Kayani resists the US in the public, the more the young ones in the TSPA will side with him. He is doing this to satisfy his constituency.

I would place our boys on full alert. Expect more such BLATANT provacations both in Af-Pak and India.

All these assasinations going on are all ISI backed by the IRGC, PRC to take on the US -first mover advantage. Expect things to get worse for Pak - Balochistan, More Fai cases, 26/11 and much more secrets tumbling out the cupboard.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 07 Aug 2011 21:42

It appears that the SEALs were killed after the helicopter was shot down, according to NDTV ticker going now. Don't know where they are getting their information from. Very interesting. This means these chaps may have got the same treatment as our Kumaonis recently. Welcome to the jungle Amirkhan.

Karna_A · Post by **Karna_A** » 07 Aug 2011 21:43

There are some questions here:

(a) Why did so many Navy Seals travel in one heli. In US usually there are laws in companies that not more than 3 top officials can travel by same flight. Same should be used for special special forces.
(b) Navy Seals Six are targets after OBL. Why keep them in AFG? There is nothing that they can do, that Delta cannot.
Seal Six should just be kept on an Aircraft carrier in Arabian sea and used for some more snatch and dump in Sea operations.
(c) What if one of the Afghans was really a Talib and blew his suicide vest
(d) Any trace of phone calls in that area to TSP just before the accident.

Kabul Intercontinental, Mumbai, Governor assassination and now Seal. All these are eye as eye operations. TSPA is cornered and like a rat is biting all around. Looks like it's time for India to be very careful as it is taking the pressure off and will look for soft targets.

sum · Post by **sum** » 07 Aug 2011 21:50

(a) Why did so many Navy Seals travel in one heli. In US usually there are laws in companies that not more than 3 top officials can travel by same flight. Same should be used for special special forces.

Not sure if special ops can have the luxury of a huge tail ( loads of flying choppers etc) of crafts when on "silent ops". Also, there will be quantity limitations on the 160th SOAR pilots and airframes also reqd for such ops.

(b) Navy Seals Six are targets after OBL. Why keep them in AFG? There is nothing that they can do, that Delta cannot.

Didnt one of the post-OBL articles talk about how this( OBL Abbottabad episode) was just one of the 1000s of such ops they keep doing? Doubt that Delta alone ca sustain the daily 10-15 snatch and grabs which the US SF reportedly keep doing daily in Afg/Pak.

Never know( for now) if the brought down chopper was going in for a high value target close to the Pakis in the Af-Pak sector( not sure what else can justify 20 ST-6 guys in a single mission) which made the Pakis to tip-off/take direct action to thwart the Amir-Khan and cause a massive blow.

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 07 Aug 2011 22:03

I friend of mine informed me that he posted a couple of thought provoking comments
on CNN, yahoo and NY times in "readers' comments" section about the Af-pak situation.
Absolutely no foul language or dumb accusations, but pointing our the double roles being played by TSP. However, those comments were removed within minutes...........
Why? Can any one explain? Too uncomfortable?

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 07 Aug 2011 22:05

Some journo's were invited for DoD live feed briefing. They were saying ISAF/NATO are going to go hard on the Talibs/Pakis etc and are preparing for major ops.

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 07 Aug 2011 22:12

^^^ There is an option in these web sites to flag comments. It seems that Paki's spend every waking moment on the comment section of these sites flagging every anti Paki comment that they see.If you look at comments in you tube videos all videos about India's achievement have negative comments. Videos ranging from Tata nano to chandrayaan to nuclear reactors etc. Most of these comments are from TSPians claiming to be Gora's . They are jobless jackasses with nothing better to do.Besides who gives a damn to these . The important people know the truth already. A mango Khanlander can't even locate TSP on the map ,much less understand geo politics.

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 07 Aug 2011 22:13

shyamd wrote:Some journo's were invited for DoD live feed briefing. They were saying ISAF/NATO are going to go hard on the Talibs/Pakis etc and are preparing for major ops.

Stock up on popcorn people. Action packed year. Hope if something happens about the new clear detergent.

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 07 Aug 2011 22:15

Note, even Fareed bhai is living up to expectations, no talk so far on his show about the ISI revenge attack taking out Navy seals.

AdityaM · Post by **AdityaM** » 08 Aug 2011 02:52

gakakkad wrote:^^^ There is an option in these web sites to flag comments. It seems that Paki's spend every waking moment on the comment section of these sites flagging every anti Paki comment that they see.If you look at comments in you tube videos all videos about India's achievement have negative comments. Videos ranging from Tata nano to chandrayaan to nuclear reactors etc. Most of these comments are from TSPians claiming to be Gora's . They are jobless jackasses with nothing better to do.Besides who gives a damn to these . The important people know the truth already. A mango Khanlander can't even locate TSP on the map ,much less understand geo politics.

You certainly seem to.
6 lines devoted to trashing the trash

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 08 Aug 2011 05:52

Thus spake the moutpiece of ISI, the Nutty Nation

Osama bin Laden would feel avenged at the death of Navy SEALs of the same unit that raided Abbottabad and must be laughing at the ruining of the US economy, since the major cause of that ruin, indisputably, is the war on terror that President Bush cavalierly dragged the country into, and that his successor, in the face of the war-weary American public, has to abandon with ‘mission unaccomplished’.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 08 Aug 2011 06:19

JE Menon wrote:We can be virtually certain that the weapon used by the Taliban to bring down the Chinook was supplied from Pakistan. The deafening silence from American officialdom on the event is also remarkable.

Yes. But he fact that BRF is discussing this in the "Af-Pak" thread indicates that we also believe that there is some separate American designated entity called "Af-Pak" where the blame does not lie with Pakistan but some virtual entity in between where the topic can be discussed without actually putting the blame where it lies - with the Pakistan army.

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 08 Aug 2011 06:58

Afghan Chopper downing raises concerns over US

http://discussions.latimes.com/20/lanew ... 0110808/10?

gakakkad · Post by **gakakkad** » 08 Aug 2011 08:53

AdityaM wrote:
You certainly seem to.

6 lines devoted to trashing the trash

Dont we spend 72 pages per thread devoted to trashing trash? And the 72 pages get filled per month. I was mere explaining the user why his friends posts got deleted. Its from my own experience of commenting on sites and finding my comments flagged even though their was nothing abusive. I gave up commenting since then . Everyone on this site has the geo-strategy and international politics as a hobby .

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 08 Aug 2011 15:33

33 Americans killed in a chopper crash this time in Paktia. What is uncle going to do now? TSP is being cocky because of Beijing and Tehran support.

Mending precarious ties: New CIA station chief arrives in Islamabad

By Kamran Yousaf
Published: August 8, 2011
Undercover agent assumed charge after his predecessor’s sudden departure from Pakistan last month.
ISLAMABAD:
The new undercover Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Islamabad station chief has arrived in Pakistan in a move that indicates the latest push by the two sides to repair troubled intelligence cooperation efforts.

The new CIA Islamabad chief assumed charge a few days back after his predecessor’s sudden departure from Pakistan last month – ostensibly on medical grounds – confirmed a Pakistani official, requesting anonymity.

However, the main reason behind the previous CIA chief’s exit from the country was attributed to his ‘extremely tense’ relations with Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of Pakistan’s top spy agency the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

He was also believed to have developed serious differences with US Ambassador Cameron Munter on the CIA-led drone campaign in the country’s tribal belt.

The new CIA station chief is the third in the last seven months that the US top spy agency has appointed in Pakistan.

Sources claim that the new CIA chief has already met senior Pakistani intelligence officials, including Pasha, in an effort to mend deteriorating ties. However, neither the Pakistani authorities nor the US Embassy have confirmed the meeting.

A US Embassy spokesperson even refused to confirm or deny the arrival of the new CIA station chief, saying he was not authorised to speak regarding intelligence matters.

The CIA Islamabad station chief is considered to be one of the US agency’s most important positions in the world.

In December last year, the CIA pulled its then station chief Jonathan Banks out of Pakistan after his cover was blown up in a lawsuit filed by relatives of drone attack victims.

His successor, who recently left the post, oversaw the intelligence operation that led to the May 2 raid by US Special Forces in Abbottabad that killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

However, over the past few months, his relations with the ISI deteriorated. The country’s security establishment has repeatedly expressed reservations over what it called ‘the private CIA network.’

Following the Abbottabad raid, security agencies rounded up several Pakistanis, who were believed to be working for the CIA.

“The CIA’s decision to pull out its Islamabad station chief is a confidence-building measure to rebuild ties with the ISI,” said a security official.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8th, 2011.

.

Further big news:
US helicopter shot down in Taliban trap: Afghan official

By AFP
Published: August 8, 2011
In this photograph taken on March 30, 2011, a US army Chinook helicopter lands at Kandahar airfield in southern Afghanistan. PHOTO: AFP
KABUL: A helicopter which crashed killing 30 US troops in Afghanistan was shot down after the Taliban laid a trap to lure US forces into the area, an Afghan government official said Monday.

“Now it’s confirmed that the helicopter was shot down and it was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said the commander lured US forces to the scene by telling them there was a Taliban meeting taking place there.

The official said that President Hamid Karzai’s US-backed government “thinks this was a retaliation attack for the killing of Osama Bin Laden.”

The Taliban did not make such an assertion when they claimed responsibility for the attack.

Citing intelligence “gathered from the area,” the official blamed Qari Tahir, a Taliban commander, for masterminding the attack. He alleged that four Pakistani nationals helped Tahir carry out the strike.

He said the intelligence also showed that the Chinook helicopter was brought down by multiple shots including “modern weapons” without giving further details.

The helicopter was attacked from either side of a valley, the only route to the Taliban-dominated Sayd Abad district in Wardak province where the attack happened late Friday, the official said.

“The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take,” he added.

“That’s the only route, so they took position on the either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. It was brought down by multiple shots,” he said.
.

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 08 Aug 2011 16:16

shyamd wrote: US helicopter shot down in Taliban trap: Afghan official
By AFP

“Now it’s confirmed that the helicopter was shot down and it was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said the commander lured US forces to the scene by telling them there was a Taliban meeting taking place there.

The official said that President Hamid Karzai’s US-backed government “thinks this was a retaliation attack for the killing of Osama Bin Laden.”

The Taliban did not make such an assertion when they claimed responsibility for the attack.

Citing intelligence “gathered from the area,” the official blamed Qari Tahir, a Taliban commander, for masterminding the attack. He alleged that four Pakistani nationals helped Tahir carry out the strike.

He said the intelligence also showed that the Chinook helicopter was brought down by multiple shots including “modern weapons” without giving further details.

The helicopter was attacked from either side of a valley, the only route to the Taliban-dominated Sayd Abad district in Wardak province where the attack happened late Friday, the official said.

“The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take,” he added.

“That’s the only route, so they took position on the either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. It was brought down by multiple shots,” he said.

How can they possibly walk into an ambush! I assumed they do a recon of the area with sat and uav's before sending someone in. Also whoever leads the mission knows possible ambush points. How does an entire spl forces unit let someone in flanking position.It beats me!

darshhan · Post by **darshhan** » 08 Aug 2011 18:34

Altair wrote: How can they possibly walk into an ambush! I assumed they do a recon of the area with sat and uav's before sending someone in. Also whoever leads the mission knows possible ambush points. How does an entire spl forces unit let someone in flanking position.It beats me!

Altair ji , Time is a constraint for many special forces raids.Especially in places like Afghanistan which abound in fleeting targets.For these kind of raids there is hardly any preparation time available.You just have to trust your instincts and hope for the best.

sanjeevpunj · Post by **sanjeevpunj** » 08 Aug 2011 18:51

^^^They didn't call for backup air cover? In such a situation, it would be handy to have some cover before one flies around in the valley and becomes an easy target.

darshhan · Post by **darshhan** » 08 Aug 2011 19:07

sanjeevpunj wrote:^^^They didn't call for backup air cover? In such a situation, it would be handy to have some cover before one flies around in the valley and becomes an easy target.

Sanjeev ji , These navy seals were themselves backup for another force that was pinned down in a firefight.

rajithn · Post by **rajithn** » 08 Aug 2011 19:56

Altair wrote: How can they possibly walk into an ambush! I assumed they do a recon of the area with sat and uav's before sending someone in. Also whoever leads the mission knows possible ambush points. How does an entire spl forces unit let someone in flanking position.It beats me!

Not very difficult if they have been fed intelligence to the effect that HVTs are meeting at the location and are bound to disperse within hours. There isnt time for recon or for that matter establishing authenticity of information.

Notice that there isnt much coverage on the status of the troops that were supposedly pinned down - that's strange, dont you think? Maybe all the 22 ST6 members were not on the chopper - may be it was one ST6 team that was pinned down/captured and the other ST6 went in to rescue them.

Whatever information they received pointed to a HVT they wanted to capture alive if possible or atleast be able to show to the world as dead. If the HVT was NOT so valuable psychologically, they could have just blown the place to smithereens with a predator.

The trap was set with the big cheese!

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 08 Aug 2011 20:06

Altair wrote:
How can they possibly walk into an ambush! I assumed they do a recon of the area with sat and uav's before sending someone in. Also whoever leads the mission knows possible ambush points. How does an entire spl forces unit let someone in flanking position.It beats me!

Altair bhai,

one is what we see in movies and images in media, other is reality.

For example, the recon by sat/uav images have to be collated, analyzed by the HQ and the analysed info fed to the ground troops. A request for satellite positioning at a particular location will take after approval will takes hours for a satellite to come into position. This whole takes a minimum of 4 hrs to days. That time is an eternity in a fluid battle situation.

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 08 Aug 2011 20:24

darshhan, Virupaksha,rajithn
It can be positively concluded that whoever planned this knows exactly the response time and the protocols which Americans follow. It was a very cleverly laid trap and those chaps walked straight into it. The Pakis knew exactly how Americans think and respond. Americans and their entire special forces are completely compromised. A price paid for being such dumbasses.
If they still want to cut their losses they can ask India to lend a hand but naaaa its H&D loss for a nation which spends nearly a trillion dollars on defense. You get what you deserve!

sanjeevpunj · Post by **sanjeevpunj** » 08 Aug 2011 20:38

On strategy that might work is - US should back off , lay low,act as if they are leaving the region forever, and when the enemy gathers to celebrate and consolidate, drop a small nuke in the region.

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 08 Aug 2011 20:46

Altair:

The combination of TSPA/ISI & Talibunnies know the tough terrian in and out, and hence planning & executing such an ambush doesn't seem far-fetched. The only thing that will prevent this type of attack would be for US to attack the source: TSPA/ISI, and make them pay a dis-proporionate price. Stay tuned.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 08 Aug 2011 22:24

Do they now know what brought the Chinook down? We know it was an ambush but what ordnance was used to bring it down. Some anchor on CNN (?) said multiple hits were made.

subodh · Post by **subodh** » 08 Aug 2011 22:51

http://news.yahoo.com/us-helicopter-sho ... 56126.html

"Afghan officials said an insurgent rocket downed the helicopter, which was said to have broken into several parts after being hit."

No idea how reliable this is - but could an Anza break a chinook apart in mid-air? A single, lucky hit? Or multiple hits - which could certainly break up any slow moving heli..

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 08 Aug 2011 22:52

Afghan official said:

“That’s the only route, so they took position on the either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. It was brought down by multiple shots,” he said.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 Aug 2011 01:38

Bloomberg reports its a RPG round that downed the CH-47

LINK

....Lapan said NATO suspected that the CH-47 was downed by an unguided rocket-propelled grenade, not a more advanced heat- seeking shoulder-fired missile that might have indicated a new level of Taliban capability.

Rocket-propelled grenades, designed to attack ground vehicles, are sometimes used against helicopters. The two UH-60 Black Hawks downed during the October 1993 U.S. “Black Hawk Down” raid in Mogadishu, Somalia, were hit by RPGs.

In a 2009 Joint Aircraft Survivability Report to the House defense appropriations subcommittee, the Army examined helicopter losses in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2008. The Army lost 327 aircraft, with 469 fatalities.

Sixty-five of the aircraft and 100 personnel killed were downed by hostile action; of those, 28 deaths were caused by attacks from RPGs, according to the study.

Plausible but not possible.
- The fact is it was an ambush.
- The TSP is hopping mad to get even with US after Abortabad

Can't be ruled out till they see the debris.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 Aug 2011 07:49

Of the 65 aircraft lost to hostile fire, how many were Chinooks?

wig · Post by **wig** » 09 Aug 2011 08:11

a repeat of the news published above now in the Tribune of Chandigar. AFP's Puli Alam writes that : Taliban had lured Chinook into trap

The Taliban lured US forces into an elaborate trap to shoot down their helicopter killing 30 American troops in the deadliest such incident of the war, an Afghan official said today.

The senior government official told AFP on condition of anonymity that a Taliban commander, Qari Tahir, lured US forces to the scene by tipping them off that a Taliban meeting was taking place. He also said four Pakistanis helped Tahir carry out the strike.

“Now it’s confirmed that the helicopter was shot down and it was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander,” said the official, citing intelligence gathered from the area. “The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take,” he added.

“That’s the only route, so they took position on the either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. It was brought down by multiple shots.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss the issue, also said President Hamid Karzai’s US-backed government “thinks this was a retaliation attack for the killing of Osama bin Laden.”

The Taliban themselves did not make such an assertion on claiming responsibility for the attack, which took place in the Taliban-infested Sayd Abad district of Wardak province, just southwest of Kabul.

A total of 38 persons - 30 US troops, seven Afghan commandos and an interpreter - were killed when their Chinook came down during an anti-Taliban operation on Friday.

The crash marked the biggest single loss of life for American and NATO forces since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban in late 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks.

US media has reported that the dead included members of the Navy’s Seal Team Six, the secretive unit behind the daring raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan in May.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110809/world.htm#3

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 09 Aug 2011 08:26

FACT-1: It was a well laid trap to ambush US SPECIAL FORCES who would come to get their HVT
FACT-2: ISI provided the necessary "quality intel" which would pass US scrutiny to send a team in first place. ISI must have done lot of homework to pull this.
The conclusion is US would think twice before trusting any CI or HUMINT in Afghanistan before sending any more spl forces. The operations will reduce in number atleast in the time being. Pakistan is buying time.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 09 Aug 2011 08:59

Bin Laden's Files Revealed the Terrorists in Dramatic Decline

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 09 Aug 2011 09:23

ramana wrote:Bloomberg reports its a RPG round that downed the CH-47

I think that once an RPG is launched - no countermeasures from a helo can stop it. Either it has to miss or the aircraft is kaput. An RPG is just a huge bullet - a man launched artillery shell. But the presence of unfriendly forces with RPGs within range is an intel failure.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 09 Aug 2011 10:41

abhishek_sharma wrote:Bin Laden's Files Revealed the Terrorists in Dramatic Decline

Guess that is Obama's twist on the files, to get the Americans out of Afghanistan!

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 09 Aug 2011 11:04

RajeshA wrote:
abhishek_sharma wrote:Bin Laden's Files Revealed the Terrorists in Dramatic Decline
Guess that is Obama's twist on the files, to get the Americans out of Afghanistan!

Spot on.Sails are being readied. Cut and Run. Someone here was talking about US retaliation and I must stay tuned!

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 09 Aug 2011 12:19

The ISI should sense blood now after, among other things, the downgrading by S&P. They would be right in assuming that the US will display an urgency to quit Afghanistan and would desperately seek a face saving formula. The PA will sense an opportunity to extract every pound of flesh from an USA in a hurry. The death of 30 US service personnel will be an incremental to the US decision making process in planning the exit. So, PA would like the Pakistanis to bear the pain a little longer and bite their teeth a little harder because the day to crow that the PA had defeated the other superpower too is not far ahead. With looming uncertainties, India has to be extremely cautious on the foreign policy front involving Afghanistan and other powers as well as on the India-Pakistan border.

sum · Post by **sum** » 09 Aug 2011 12:58

^^ Dont the Pakis get a spider sense of the massive thank-you jhapad Unkil might give( esp to the ISI) for all the services rendered before fully exiting?

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 09 Aug 2011 13:19

400% agreement with SSridhar. Definitely dicey times ahead...